Thursday, July 14, 2011

Proud Titania and Oberon's Bed, in miniature

I recently bought this movie in a rental place's going out of business sale inexpensively, for the simple reason that it's pretty :)  I've always loved Shakespeare anything so I had to watch this movie.  It's rather silly and more than a few times odd in places but the imagery is lovely and the speech is beautiful thanks to the style of the bard :)  Here's the movie trailer:

and as you can see it's a little goofy :)  But what interests me is the style of the dress and setting, it's beautiful.  And inspiring.  And the speech?  Well... a little difficult to understand and keep track of due to the vast difference in modern language.  But that's half the fun for me :)  Trying to keep up with it is part of the charm.  A sample of the beauty of the speech from a scene between Titania and Oberon and then Oberon to his henchman Puck:

"Ill met by moonlight, proud Titania.

What, jealous Oberon!
Fairies, skip hence.
I have forsworn his bed and company.
Tarry!

Rash wanton, am not I thy lord?

Then I must be thy lady.

Why art thou here, come from the farthest steppe of India,
but that, for sooth, the bouncing Amazon,
your buskin'd mistress and your warrior love,
to Theseus must be wedded, and you come to give their bed joy and prosperity.
How canst thou thus for shame, Titania, glance at my credit with Hippolyta,
knowing I know thy love to Theseus?

These are the forgeries of jealousy.
And never, since the middle summer's spring, met we on hill, in dale, forest, or mead,
by paved fountain or by rushy brook, but with thy brawls thou hast disturbed our sport.
Therefore, the winds, piping to us in vain, as in revenge, have sucked up from the sea
contagious fogs, which, falling in the land, hath every pelting river made so proud
that they have overborne their continents.
And this same progeny of evils comes from our debate, from our dissension.
We are their parents and original.

Do you amend it then?

It lies in you.

Why should Titania cross her Oberon?

I do but beg a little changeling boy to be my henchman.
Set your heart at rest. The fairyland buys not the child of me.
His mother was a votaress of my order, and in the spiced Indian air,
by night, full often hath she gossiped by my side and sat with me
on Neptune's yellow sands, marking the embarked traders on the flood
when we have laughed to see the sails conceive and grow big-bellied
with the wanton wind. But she, being mortal, of that boy did die,
and for her sake do I rear up her boy.  And for her sake I will not part with him.

How long within this wood intend you stay?

Perchance till after Theseus' wedding day.  If you will patiently dance in our round...
and see our moonlight revels, go with us.

Give me that boy, and I will go with thee.

Not for thy fairy kingdom!

Fairies, away!  We shall chide downright if I longer stay.

Well, go thy way.  Thou shalt not from this grove till I torment thee for this injury.

My gentle Puck, come hither.  Thou rememberest, since once I sat upon a promontory
and heard a mermaid on a dolphin's back uttering such dulcet and harmonious breath
that the rude sea grew civil at her song.  That very time, I saw, but thou couldst not,
flying between the cold moon and the Earth, Cupid all armed.
A certain aim he took and loosed his love shaft smartly from his bow.
Yet, marked I where the bolt of Cupid fell.  It fell upon a little western flower,
before milk-white, now purple with love's wound.  Fetch me that flower.
The juice of it, on sleeping eyelids laid, will make all man, all woman madly dote
upon the next live creature that it sees.  Fetch me this herb and be thou here again
ere the leviathan can swim a league.

I'll put a girdle round about the Earth in minutes.

Having once this juice, I'll watch Titania when she's asleep and drop the liquor of it
in her eyes.  The next thing then she waking looks upon...she shall pursue it
with the soul of love.  And ere I take this charm from off her sight, I'll make her render up herpage to me.  I'll make her render up herpage to me."

And so it goes and this is why it charms me :)  Pure poetry.  Scenes like this truly inspire me to create things of beauty, sparkling with fairy dust, but with bits of natural woodland tossed in with opulent glittering things that remind of the fairy royalty :)  Not just simply regular wild and natural fairy pieces but the furniture of the fairy queen herself.  Half wild and natural, half glimmering with beauty and a posh smattering of fabrics and jewels.

I'm currently making Titania's bed, the one she would be sharing with her Oberon after he's dropped her eyes with the magical juice of a love flower and brought her back to him.


  I've picked a variety of glittering fabrics from sheer violet fabric to hand-dyed silk ribbons and I plan on using them all in some way if possible.  I may have to do a patchwork spread and also do a variety of pillows.
and other items I have that I plan on using if they fit in:

I'll clip the bale off the pendant and give the frame wings (Sherry made those, they're cuties) and put a picture in it, perhaps of Titania herself? 
although I need to search for a better picture than this.  Plus she looks a tad angry, since she has just been fighting with her hubs :)

I've made a basic start of it, and trust me when I say this is far from finished.  Lots to do here, this is simply the start of the frame itself.  I have to make a padded mattress yet, bedding, add moss, etc. so this will be a whole different thing in the end :)


I like to think of this type of fairy furniture as "posh fairy style", not entirely rustic and wild.
 
   





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